


WWVD?

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25809397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Aunts. Ants. Revolution.What really happened when Pseudopolis became a republic? What happens when you're a symbiont to a sentient computer? Can I write Bobbi deciding not to get married without referencing the musical 'Company'? And what would Vetinari do?
Relationships: Rincewind & Ponder Stibbons, Roberta Meserole/Original Female Character
Comments: 14
Kudos: 9





	1. Bees?

Ponder had to read the Clacks four times to process what it said. His aunt was once again asking if he wanted to transfer to Braseneck University, she had acquired a new white fluffy cat named Fleming, and she was engaged to be married to Lady Roberta Meserole.

Not many people knew the name and that was how Lady Meserole wanted it. Many people had a general notion that the Patrician had ‘an aunt in Pseudopolis’ but her career and status as a revolutionary remained in shadow.

Laurel Stibbons was a stoneware and earthenware potter. In recent years her pottery had taken off in popularity and were found in dining rooms all across the Sto Plains. There was talk of opening a factory but Laurel had concerns about how this would affect the quality of the pottery.

She liked things to be organized and logical but she felt like she never really understood her chronically unambitious nephew until he joined the faculty at Unseen University. Now, of course, he was effectively running the University, which made much more sense. If you were good at something you should get things done rather than try to minimize how much work you have to do, but now she worried that Ponder had gone too far in the other direction.

Ponder’s head spun. Aunt Laurel had never mentioned even knowing Lady Meserole.

They could, of course, get married in Ankh-Morpork.

It had actually been legal in Ankh-Morpork for longer than anyone realized. Lord Vetinari had quietly changed the law and focused on securing substantive legal protections and anti-discrimination laws. As a result of this, by the time other governments were passing legislation on marriage equality with much fanfare, as though it were a finish line, even the conservative and privileged of Ankh-Morpork’s gay community recognized the difference between a bone tossed, or as the case may be, wrestled from unwilling hands, and seats at the table.

This recognition depended on the fact that it was _their_ city that was Doing It Right. Ponder tried not to be too depressed by this.

Pseudopolis had recognized same sex-marriage long before the current ruler took office, but Duchess Juliann wore the ruling as a feather in her cap.

She made wishy-washy pronouncements on nearly everything, but she did it in both Morporkian _and_ Quirmian so Pseudopolis seemed to think that was alright. She had a history of joining in on public protests against her own policies. Ponder didn’t know the details, but he knew there was a weapons factory in Pseudopolis.

On a scale from Winder to Vetinari, she was a solid Olaf Quimby II.

Ponder Stibbons thought he could smell something fishy, but it may just have been the banana pizza.

After some thought, he corrected a few lines of code in the program he was writing for HEX, pulled the lever with the sign saying “Do Not Pull,” and sat on the ground to eat the rest of the cold pizza. He tried not to think about the possibility of being called up to the Palace. A phrase flashed across his brain like the readout on HEX - _Brothers-in-law._

He dropped the piece of pizza on the ground again. This couldn’t be happening.

-

Laurel Stibbons and Roberta Meserole were discussing the etymology of the word ‘manufacture’ over coffee.

“It means made by hand,” Laurel repeated, “that is the root and heart of the matter.”

“Ask the average person on the street what they think of when they hear the word ‘manufacturing,” Roberta said, skating on the edge of a monologue on linguistic drift.

“Yes, why is that?”

Roberta smiled. “The word was carried along as methods of production changed. When the machines arrived, the definition shifted to mean ‘by hand or by machinery’ as the machines proliferated, the ‘by hand-labor’ part gradually dropped out of the meaning of the word in typical usage. Eventually the Latatian roots were subsumed into obsolescence and the concept of manufacturing became about the processing of materials from their raw form. Then, as factories arose, it took on the sense of production in large quantities, involving large machines and many workers. Figurative use then came to focus on connotations of artificiality and contrivance. Words carry their history, they are turned over in circles like waves on the ocean.”

“You say ‘the machines’ as though they are an abstract and unstoppable force,” Laurel said, looking into her coffee and wondering how many machines were involved before it reached her cup.

“It does to move with the times.”

Laurel hummed. “I think I’d prefer the times moved with me.”

Roberta set down her intricately hand-glazed cup. “You know where I stand.”

“Workshop of artisans, commune of creators, collective, cooperative... It’s all the guild system wearing different hats.”

“Hats,” Lady Meserole said solemnly, “are very important.”

-

Ponder knew he had to send a note of congratulations. He had been meaning to, but he was distracted by HEX’s long-term storage (bees) having a crisis because the students had not removed enough honey.

Glenda Sugarbean, who had been helping him, wanted to know if things going wrong in the hives would damage the memory of the computer. He had just sighed and said he didn’t know and didn’t want to think about it.

Tea should be good though, he was looking forward to it.

He went up to the Clacks tower with a simple ‘Congratulations! Are you going to send a save-the-date?’

He could have sent something longer. It was an open secret that the university was pirating air-time from paying Guilds.

Upon returning to the HEM building, Ponder, to his own surprise, began picking up the papers and food debris that covered the floor.

He could just about wrap his head around his aunt getting married and, from what he had heard of Lady Meserole, he could imagine her being interested in someone like that. But the fact that Meserole was the Patrician’s only living relation— The one he had jokingly offered the hand in marriage of to a dragonslayer— Well, it just didn’t compute. Out of Cheese Error. Redo from Start.

Was the aunt of a Prince technically a Princess? No one really called Lord Vetinari a Prince except for Glenda Sugarbean lamenting that the narrative imperative calling for Juliet Stollop to marry a Prince was hindered by the local one being disqualified by reason of age and being Lord Vetinari.

Ponder had every intention of returning to the dining hall to distract himself with honey cakes from the imminent threat of siblinghood. Just as he was cramming the last paper takeaway container into the bag containing a week’s worth of student refuse, a shape appeared in the doorway. With some relief he recognized the bedazzled hat in his peripheral vision.

“Oh, hiya Rincewind,” he said mellowly.

“There’s a lot of Clacks coming through for you. Someone called Bobbi?”

“Huh,” Ponder said. The only Bobbi he knew of was the lead role in the Dysk musical _Having People Over_.

-

There is a list of things you need to get from a fiefdom to a republic. Discontent and consciousness are near the top of the list.

Roberta was very conscious that she was discontented with Pseudopolis.

Duchess Juliann had ordered a campaign to steal the river Quire from Quirm. In Juliann’s mind this world be advantageous to the city of Pseudopolis and render Quirm answerable to its demands.

From an engineering standpoint it was perfectly possible. The river ran over a wide floodplain through Octarine Grass Country. From a geopolitical standpoint it was madness. More significantly, it was cruel and avaricious.

Juliann had enlisted the engineering department at Braseneck. There were rumors that they might even involve their Quite Big Thing in the rerouting calculations. Roberta knew that when you have a lot of clever, over-enthusiastic young people too focused on whether they can do something to ask if they should, the only way to stop them is call upon... well, to call upon the person who had taught them to be that way.

-

_So that was why his aunt wanted him to transfer to Braseneck._ Ponder thought, sifting through the pile of Clacks messages. He had ascertained that Lady Meserole was ‘Bobbi’ to friends, a category that Ponder had no hope of wriggling out of.

“Why are you hanging around, Rincewind?” Ponder asked. Rincewind was watching him try to consolidate a voluminous mass of slips of paper into something he carry back to read more carefully.

“Some of your students are asking to be taught,” Rincewind said.

“They’re not my students,” Ponder said. He was still miffed about Rincewind a) being absolutely brilliant in figuring out how to make Shakespeare happen and receiving no credit or recognition and b) insulting his elocution and dramatic interpretation.

“I was wondering if you had any advice.”

“Wait. You mean taught by you? What could you teach them besides the 1000-meter sprint?”

“You can see why I’m asking for advice.”

Ponder sighed. “Don’t you ever get upset, Rincewind? Why do you let the faculty call you stupid? Why do you let me call you stupid?”

Rincewind didn’t point out that Ponder was, in point of fact, over half the faculty. “I do get upset, you just don’t notice unless it involves shouting at you.”

Ponder took off his glasses and pressed his hands to his eyes. “How does Octarine Grass Country do for Cruel and Unusual?”

“High levels of magic saturation, popular hangout for Death in a funny mood...”

“We’re going to stop a theft in progress!”

“I should have expected this, shouldn’t I?” Rincewind said with a massive sigh. “Another adventure.”

Ponder wasn’t sure how exactly he was going to about doing this. He looked down at the pile of Clacks flimsies. His gaze landed on the phrase ‘my nephew told me.’

Lord Vetinari would... deceitfully offer his services to aid the project of redirecting the river? No. He would show up, tell absolutely everyone that he was investigating and would intervene the moment he perceived anything threatening Ankh-Morpork. Ponder couldn’t do that, but he might be able to do the former thing.

First he had to speak to the Archchancellor to avoid being murdered for perceived collusion with Braseneck.

-

Laurel stood in front of the mullioned windows of her house, the setting sun catching the silhouette of her curly grey hair and broad cheekbones.

She was both handsome and beautiful and Roberta was almost distracted from listening to what she was saying by looking at her in this golden light. Age had sharpened the younger woman’s features and there was a fire of cynicism in her eyes.

“I’m not giving up, nor sharing ownership of anything. No matter how good others are at the work, they approach it differently. That is what makes it art. I will not be one among many in my own workshop.”

“You are so clever,” Roberta purred. “You could have as much wealth and fame as you could dream of.”

Laurel leaned against the clay-stained table. “So could you, if you ever wanted to reach for it. But you don’t. You never have.”

Roberta quirked an eyebrow. “What do you think I’m doing right now?” Roberta walked over and put her hands on the table on either side of Laurel, looking directly into her eyes. They were large, dark eyes, somehow both worried and deeply confident.

-

Mentioning hydraulics had been a mistake.

Ridcully understood spying and sabotage well enough, but he had asked what Ponder was planning to do and Ponder Stibbons, being Ponder Stibbons, had answered in more detail than was advisable.

“Is fluvial a kind of fruit?”

“No, it’s—“

“Can you make it into jam?”

“Archchancellor, I—“

“It sounds rather tart, I think one would have to add a lot of sugar. And what’s all this about ripping zones?”

“Riparian zones,” Ponder said, staring at a space on the wall behind Ridcully’s head.

“Oh well, as long as you’re sticking it to those upstarts and not asking for more funding, you have my blessing or whatever.”

“Thank you, Archchancellor.”

-

The wedding was weeks away but the best man was already dreading the coach ride.

“Spring suspension is truly unpleasant, Drumknott.”

“Yes, Lordship.”

“I end up in a lot of pain.”

“I know. I’m sorry."

“Why couldn’t she come here? She doesn’t have to make a 25-hour journey in one day. Or if it was winter I could travel by sleigh.”

“Snow cover doesn’t last long enough anymore.”

A sobering thought and a guilty one for a government in possession of a perpetual motion machine.

-

Ponder Stibbons was also trying to figure out how to get to Pseudopolis. Broomsticks were... an option.

The students were enthused about broomsticks. Ponder, who had actually ridden one, was not.

Rincewind, bless him, had volunteered the fact that he could run there in under two days. This accomplished nothing but increasing the probability that Ponder would say something that he would regret.

In the end, the students won out, with the argument that, though between them they held two dozen faculty positions, Ponder and Rincewind were in fact two _people_ and consequently did not outnumber the students.

Ponder purchased more long underwear.


	2. Going to Pseudopolis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a series of events that likely inspired some of the dynamic between Vetinari and da Quirm, Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci once tried to steal the river Arno from Pisa, so of course I've mirror-inverted some of that story

Ponder wrote a letter to Adrian Turnipseed, answering his inquiries regarding whether it still made sense to call Braseneck’s computer PEX now they have switched to the Ant Operating System rather than “run for cover the chickens are falling.” Ponder had used a lot of pointed question marks because answering a researcher’s questions mostly consists of asking better, more pointed questions, like _‘I thought it was an acronym??’_

As a postscript he asked Adrian to reach out to the engineers working on the river project. 

On the journey to Pseudopolis Ponder found an unexpected answer to his own poor thermoregulation in a wizard afraid of grounds who resolutely refused to fly on his own broomstick. Rincewind’s reasoning was that Stibbons was actually the kind of person who would not intentionally put himself in danger, so he clung to the wizard who thought feeling scared was something to write home about. Since Ponder’s hands and feet tended to turn blue and register all sensation as pain* when the air temperature dropped below freezing he was in no position to complain.

The students were trying to do tricks on the broomsticks and someone had put a spell on a football to make it fly through the air. Amazingly this did not seem to be slowing their progress.

“Can we fly lower?” Ponder asked.

“Why are you asking me?” 

“You said you were afraid of the ground.”

“Afraid of hitting the ground after falling from great height!”

“Oh.”

The logic of wizards, thought Rincewind, is truly impressive.

Alarmingly, as they drew closer to the floodplain near the city, they saw that the engineers of Braseneck had already dug canals into the earth. Multiple canals. What they were doing would work and it was up to Ponder to convince them that they were going about it wrong. 

He might have to pay Juliann a visit along the way.

-

In the long underground workshop, Lady Meserole was watching with awe the experiments Laurel Stibbons was performing on clay.

“This operation has been running for decades and you keep pushing boundaries.”

“Vetinaris don’t go in for that sort of thing, do they? No wonder they lost everything.” Laurel said, dropping some kind of liquid that had dissolved two previous pots on a sheet of baked pottery with a pipette. “You can’t run a business like a government and gods forfend anyone trying to run a government like a business.”

Roberta nodded seriously.

“Now your Havelock doesn’t seem to have an acquisitive bone in his body.”

“I’m sure there’s some lesson to be found in watching a tomcat eat all the furniture out of the most expensive dollhouse in turnwise Genua, but I’m not sure what it is.”

“He watched—“

“The cat was two-thirds as big as he was, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He tried coaxing him away with food but Malich was more interested in brocade than arthropods.”

“The cat?”

“Which is a shame, because it was much harder to cook the crawfish after Havelock had torn them up into little pieces.”

“What did you do?” Laurel watched the smoke rising off the slab of clay on the workbench.

“Do? Well, he felt terrible of course, and I had to clean up the vomit. Kept an eye on him for a few days after that.”

“The cat?”

“Alberto Malich. Found him trying to eat the milk cartons behind the Cafe du Disque. Not the milk, mind you, the actual cartons. Don’t know what I expected.”

“Did you... name your cat... after the founder of Unseen University?” Laurel lifted up the clay with tongs just before it put a scorch mark on the table.

This was going to be interesting.

-

“Stibbons!” Adrian Turnipseed crowed delightedly as the broomstick landed. “And Professor Rincewind, of course.”

“Adrian,” Ponder said. “Do you trust me?”

“If it’s a question between Braseneck and Unseen University, absolutely not.”

“What about between Vetinari and Duchess Juliann?” Well, one Vetinari anyway. The younger one didn’t seem to have got the memo.

“I’m your man.”

“Great. Can you tell the engineers we’re moving the deadline up by several weeks.”

“Oh-kay,” Adrian said uncertainly.

“And we only need one canal.”

“That’s not going to— Oh...”

“Yes.”

“But this is my city now.”

Ponder nodded. “And the best thing you can do for it is stop it from going to war.”

-

Patience. That was what this required. It was a voluntary sufferance.

A new suit. Not a robe that had been repaired many times. Not clothes that were comfortable and lived-in and required no thought. He was part of the ceremony. This was what that entailed. Measurements and fittings that seemed to go on interminably. Standing still while tailors (the sartorial kind) babbled around him. They were old-fashioned tailors, steadfastly committed to whatever pattern-printed, anchovy-lined, quintuple breasted creation their customers demanded. (Unlike newer, less staid houses like Shatta that would turn you away if you asked for the wrong color sequins)

The house claimed to go back to the time of kings and liked to offer tourists and school groups the opportunity to try on the cloak of King Veltrick III (fabric replaced).

But a frock coat with subtle mutton sleeves and full skirts was agreeable. It was a silhouette belonging to a very small sliver of Roundworld time so naturally in Ankh-Morpork it came around every few seasons.

Lord Vetinari had a wise witch’s aversion to standing between two mirrors, but he had to admit it looked good. The high collar and purple cravat suited his hair—rather shorter than usual at the moment, he had gotten fed up with how fast it grew.

“You look lovely.”

Vetinari made eye-contact with the Drumknott standing behind him in the left-hand mirror. There were millions of Drumknotts behind that one, fading off into greenish darkness due to the metal backing of the mirror. 

“Wool from the Chalk, dyed with with iron from Sto Helit and acorns from Überwald.”

“So’s everything else you wear.”

“What can I say, I’m a creature of habit.”

-

“Hello team!” Adrian Turnipseed said with forced cheeriness. “These are some students from Unseen University. They’re going to help us with the canal.”

“Why are they all men?” one of the wizards asked.

The wizard next to her whispered “Oh my gods, Kara, you can’t just ask people why they’re men.”

“Because Unseen University is unshakably sexist and also Mustrum Ridcully is much better at selling witchcraft than wizardry.”

“That doesn’t sound very Century of the Fruitbat. The first part, I mean.”

“Look, they’ve only just gotten over killing each other in their beds,” Adrian said.

“Did you say ‘canal’ singular?”

“I did. This is Ponder Stibbons. You remember Ponder Stibbons?”

The engineering department had never actually met Ponder Stibbons, but Adrian and Skazz talked about him and the machine HEX nearly every day.

“Wait. Back up.” Kara said “Do you mean when you interview for a place at Unseen University they try to convince you not to attend?”

Ponder looked confused. He had thought that was how all universities conducted their admissions process. Otherwise how could you say I-told-you-so?

“Yes. And then they keep trying to convince you to leave until you have tenure,” Rincewind volunteered.

“That’s not a very good marketing strategy.”

Now it was Rincewind’s turn to be confused. “It’s not a market. It’s a university.”

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Rincewind,” Ponder said gently.

“What’s Kansas?”

“No idea.”

“Do they have universities in Kansas?” Kara wanted to know.

“I’m sure they do.”

“How many universities could fit on the head of a pin?”

“Do you want to transfer to Unseen, Ms Kara?”

“You don’t have an engineering department.”

Ponder didn’t have anything to say to that. It was true. Almost nothing practical happened within University walls. 

Braseneck had what they called ‘an expansive urban campus’ meaning they rented classroom space from half a dozen landlords and each building was about an hour away from any of the others. Despite this, students seemed to attend classes with alarming regularity. 

This made scheduling discussions of the project difficult. 

Ponder hoped this would be an advantage.

-

Recorded music, that is, actual audio recordings, had been outlawed in Ankh-Morpork for reasons related the Cosmic Microwave Background. It was very likely that this law would be repealed in the near future. Now the Patrician was not so very frightened. That was the trouble with Vetinari, although less so in recent years. It had taken some prodding to get him to realize, for instance, what was wrong with his approach to the sale and use of dangerous recreational drugs. Rufus “letter of the law” Drumknott had been absolutely no help at all on that front. But at least now any substance that did not literally make people’s heads explode was legal.

Elsewhere there were gramophones. Straightforward physical technology for recording sound. Distinguishable from magic, yet also, somehow, not. 

Laurel Stibbons had one and it was magical. Roberta was certain it played recordings of performances that predated the invention of the device.

She remembered being mortified at outdoor concerts when a five or six year-old Havelock would throw himself on the ground with his hands pressed against his ears, muttering “too loud too loud too loud to loud.”

Her brother had said to be patient with the child. He’d said he sees more than other people. Lorens Vetinari would have believed fairies were small pretty things with wings if his son had said so. He would have believed spells depended on the color of candles and when you picked the ingredients. He would have believed the boy danced with household gods and fought invisible armies. All of these things were sometimes true, but Havelock never said anything like that. What he said was more along the lines of “do you notice which pieces of this broken beer bottle make rainbows in the sun and which ones don’t?” and Lorens would say “Don’t pull things out of the gutter. Dirty. Sticky. Don’t touch.” 

And Havelock would poke at the broken glass and object, quite reasonably with “Pretty.”

Laurel saw Roberta’s expression and swapped out the record on the gramophone. 

This song was something new. Moderate paced and lyrical. Better for swaying than dancing.

“You are more beautiful than this night and this city,” Roberta said quietly.

“We can do something about the second part,” Laurel said.

“I’m trying to pay you a compliment.”

“I’m trying,” Laurel lowered her voice, “to keep you around.”

“You want a revolution?”

“I’ll take what I can get. What I want is to remain a part of your story.”

“You’re scared I’m going to leave?” Roberta held Laurel close. “Where would I go? Others have long since taken my place in Genua. That city is enjoying a restoration. No place for a revolutionary where my former colleagues are thriving. I would only be treading on people’s toes.”

“Instead of just mine?”

“Sorry.”

“I think we are in agreement that Juliann has got to go.”

“I think we are." 

*On Roundworld this is known as Raynaud Syndrome 


	3. Tu me manques

Something was going wrong with the computer. This was unsurprising, considering that the Bursar and Archchancellor had tried to use it. 

Glenda Sugarbean put the tea and biscuit cart in the corner of the room and tried to see over the gaggle of pointy hats. There was a fine column of steam or smoke trailing from the far end of the machine. HEX was trying to put the living parts of himself to sleep.

“It keeps saying ‘Shutdown, Restart or Sleep,’” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

“I think sleep sounds the safest. Especially when we don’t know what he’s trying to restart or shutdown. Could be the whole universe for all we know,” said Ridcully.

“I don’t like using this thing without Ponder around,” the Senior Wrangler said worriedly. “Maybe we shouldn’t have kicked the students out of the building. Some of the ones that stayed around might know what to do.”

“They’d just muck it up. They’re students after all,” Ridcully argued. "What do you think, Dean?” 

The Chair of Indefinite Studies cleared his throat and said something quietly.

“Oh. Right.” the Archchancellor sounded distinctly put out.

Glenda raised her hand. “If you don’t mind me saying—“

“Not at all, my dear, not at all.”

“It seems to me like HEX is missing part of itself. It’s not able to make the connections it usually makes.”

“But HEX is nearly a person.” 

“Yes, Archchancellor. Sometimes people miss parts of themselves.”

Ridcully looked around at all the different parts of the huge machine. The bees, the mice, the ants, the teddy bear perched on top. It was a bit like a city or a forest. Take part of it away and other parts stop working. A university could be like that too. Or should be. Unseen University tended not to work. That was the whole point.

“I think I can understand why he wants to go to sleep. It’s disconcerting to not be able to have the arguments you’re used to having everyday.”

“Is programming a computer like having an argument?” asked Recent Runes.

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Glenda said.

“Go ahead and tell him he can sleep.” The Archchancellor led most of the wizards out of the room.

The Chair of Indefinite Studies glanced at Glenda. “The Archchancellor seems to be taking the loss of the Dean pretty hard.”

Glenda nodded. “Yes. I’m not sure how long this place can go without those two at each other’s throats.”

-

Ponder had nearly forgotten who would be waiting for him at Braseneck. He was doing his best to try to avoid the new archchancellor, who would surely have questions. The Dean, or rather Henry, archchancellor of Braseneck University, was less shouty than Mustrum Ridcully, but also decidedly less thoughtful. Ponder wasn’t sure which was worse. 

“Mr Stibbons! Have you finally decided to join us?” 

Ponder felt himself freeze and only just remembered to say “No, not planning to at the moment, archchancellor.”

“Too bad, really too bad. At least we have Turnipseed. He’s good with those computer thingies.”

Ponder hoped the wizard formerly known as the Dean wouldn’t ask him what he was doing here. Ridcully would have led with that question.

“He’s running a tight ship. Are you sure you couldn’t be persuaded to stay? You could bring your HEX machine out here on a big wagon.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Henry shrugged. “Oh well. Worth a shot.”

“I actually have to go now. Busy.”

Ponder fled out the front door of the redbrick building. How was he going to arrange a meeting with the Duchess? Rincewind was good at these kind of things. He tended to stumble into them.

-

Halfway across the city, Rincewind was stumbling into a protest outside of the capital building. Among the protestors was a tall woman with red hair. She was holding a sign that said “End The Duchess’s Hypocrisy.”

“Are you one of those look-alikes that the newspapers like to take iconographs of? Sometimes I think it really is Vetinari showing up with the Actors Guild.”

“Oh no!” the woman chuckled. “I am Juliann Fausseville. I’m here to support the people.”

So, duchess didn’t think of herself as one of the people. Noted. 

“I had this sign made so I wouldn’t have to make a new one every time the ruler does something.”

“How far-sighted of you.” She distanced herself from her own actions. Doubly noted. “What’s the local newspaper?”

“The Pseudopolis Gazelle.”

Rincewind scanned the crowd and caught sight of a vampire wearing a black trench coat over a dress who was armed with a clipboard, a young man in a shiny purple suit and a woman carrying a large camera with the posture of one who was made to walk around with books balanced on her head as a child. 

There was something oddly familiar about the sight. 

The reporters and iconographer caught sight of his famous ‘Wizzard’ hat and headed over in his direction.

“I am Aspartamia Majuscule,” the vampire said brightly. “Mind if we ask a few questions?”

“Not if I can ask a few of my own.”

“Odette might want to take a few pictures.”

“Odette?”

“Miss Odette Marseus, not _Lady.”_

“Got it.”

“And I’m Bill l'Appelle,” said the man in the purple suit.

“Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“What brings you to Pseudopolis, Mr Rincewind?” Aspartamia asked.

“The wizards at Braseneck are undertaking an engineering project and some of our students at UU were interested in taking part.”

“What can you tell us about the project?”

“I don’t know too much about it. I was hoping you might know more about its aims and how it is being received.”

“We know it’s to do with the water supply,” Bill said. “And there’s been pushback. Concerns about international relations.”

“Do you think it might damage relations with, for instance, Ankh-Morpork?”

“You mean Ankh-Morpork is not backing the project?”

Rincewind raised both eyebrows the way he had seen the Patrician do many times when faced with this kind of question. “I think I can give you what is known as ‘a scoop.’”

“We’re all ears,” Aspartamia said.

-

Ponder missed HEX. He missed being able to ask someone who could see further, or more importantly, see differently, if he was on the right course.

Would reducing the project to one canal be enough to stop it from working? How far up could he get Juliann to push up the deadline without anyone getting suspicious? Should he write to the rulers of Quirm? What should he say if he did? Could he stir up resistance among people in Octarine Grass Country?

HEX wouldn’t be able to tell him what he should do, but he would at least be able to see what might happen depending on what course of action he took. The computer could process so much more data than a human could, even in the form of gut feelings and intuition, which processed hundreds of times more information than the conscious mind.

-

“Have you got a chalkboard?” Lady Meserole asked.

“I can get one,” Laurel said. “Are you planning an insurrection?”

“No. I’m planning a wedding.”

Laurel looked around the workshop. She could probably fit a chalkboard diagonally in the corner if she moved some of the tables. That would be quite a task since they were bolted to the floor.

“Could be the same thing."


	4. Changeover Contemplated

Once they were away from the crowd, and more importantly, away from Juliann, the Pseudopolis Gazelle had a lot to say to Rincewind about how public sentiment toward the Duchess had changed in recent years.

“Why don’t they do anything about it, then?” he wondered.

“What?” Bill asked.

“The statement that the average term of office for a Patrician in Ankh-Morpork is five years is actually statistical error. Likewise, the average length of an Archchancellorship at the university. Vetinari and Ridcully, who live in un-booby-trapped offices and make people fill out paperwork, are outliers and should not have been counted.”

“Are you suggesting that we—“ Odette glanced worriedly at her own camera like it might somehow have developed the ability to record sound.

“I think a peaceful transfer of power should be possible.” 

“We won’t be a tributary of Ankh-Morpork!” Aspartamia said fiercely.

“Gods no, Ankh-Morpork would never allow it. But if the Quire stops having any—tributaries that is—I don’t know what will become of Pseudopolis.”

“What do you propose then?” Aspartamia raked her fingers through her hair, then twisted it and shoved her pen through the knot. The vampire had made herself look like a reporter in an illustrated book about flying men in tights. “If you’re going to bring up the end of the AM Civil War, a Patrician is no better than a king, just more likely to be evil.”

“In Fourecks they elect their politicians.”

“And then put them in prison,” Bill pointed out.

“It works for them.”

“I don’t think it will work for us,” Odette said.

“They wouldn’t have to arrest them.”

Anyone who had known Rincewind further back that even a few years ago would be astonished at the transformation. He did look around the room to assess any threats and locate all possible exits and the quickest ways to reach them, but he didn’t keep doing so repeatedly like he was scared things would change if he so much as blinked. He didn’t look for Death in the shadows and actually looked people in the eye when he was speaking to them. He looked at the world and its circumstances as more than a collection of potential threats. 

“I don’t think we should have a Prime Minister,” Bill said.

Odette had noticed a crack in one of the lenses of the camera and was staring at it with annoyance. “A President, maybe?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Kind of legislature?”

“If you want to write an editorial, Bill, I’m not going to stop you,” Aspartamia said.

“But I’m not nearly as good at it. I always overlook major things.”

“Yeah, that’s what an editorial column is _for._ ” Odette had taken the broken lens out and was staring through it, making one eye look huge.

“You wound me, good lady.”

“Not a lady.”

If you looked at the staff of the Ankh-Morpork Times through a kaleidoscope, you might see something like this, Rincewind thought. Hopefully they were as good in a crisis.

\- 

“Here’s how often and for how long we’ll need to get out to walk the dog,” Lord Vetinari lay a hand-lined spreadsheet gently on the desk.

Drumknott read the paper upside down. “But you don’t take Mr Fusspot out that often in normal life.”

“I’d like to be able to walk after going over every pothole between here and Pseudopolis.” 

Vetinari’s bright blue eyes were small in his face, permanently slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep, and now they fixed Drumknott with a gaze that was tired, gentle, and cold as ice.

The thing people don’t always realize about ice is that it’s often not that cold. You could use it as insulation to keep warm. 

“You’ll be alright,” Drumknott said. “Probably.”

-

Ponder received another Clacks message from Lady Meserole through the Braseneck University system. This was what he expected, although he hadn’t told her he had arrived in town. 

It said “Go to the Gazelle. The artists and lawbreakers may be the changemakers but the press are the disseminators.”

He wondered how long she had spent figuring out the syntax on that one.

-

Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs were watching the Rimward Gate to make sure no one stole it. It had actually happened once, all the bolts had been pulled out of the hinges and the large array of metal spikes was carried away until the people who had stolen it realized it wasn’t worth anything and had returned it. 

“Nobby, do you know how Ephebe started electing tyrants instead of kings?”

“I think you’ve told me this before.”

“Do you remember?”

“Not really.”

“They had direct mockracy for awhile. That means they had all the men they could fit the necropolis—that’s Ephebian for ‘agoraphobia’—who weren’t foreign or slaves or the wrong age or the wrong profession or didn’t own enough property.”

“They must have a lot of people in Ephebe or the necropolis isn't very big. Can’t see how it can mean ‘agoraphobia’ if it’s not very big,” Nobby frowned.

“ _Anyway,_ ” Fred said, “they all stood in the necropolis and decided they wanted tyrants instead of kings. So when the time came for the next king to be elected, they lected a tyrant instead.”

“My dad used to say if I was born in ancient Ephebe I would be left on a rock to die.”

“It’s a good thing you were born in Ankh-Morpork then, which is a lot of little rocks where we’re left to die very slowly.”

The gate below was rusted open and saw a steady press of traffic in both directions. There was talk of demolishing some of the city wall to ease the bottlenecking. It was a source of great contention since the wall was one of the few structures in the city that, as far as anyone knew, hadn’t been pulled apart to build something else. They had open borders, but Vetinari wanted _opener_ borders. The committees on the subject would probably go a bit better if the Patrician refrained from mixed metaphors about corsetry. 

Mrs Palm had pointed out several times that corsets were expensive and nowhere near as asphyxiating as they looked in cartoons in _The Inquirer._ Vetinari had raised an eyebrow at this implication that he didn’t know what he was talking about and she had whispered “what you do or wear in your free time has no place in the boardroom regarding this topic,” and he had turned away and covered his mouth for a few seconds.

People suspected that Vetinari wanted to be able to tell the ruler of the city to “tear down this wall” but the only person he could tell to do that was himself and that rather ruined the effect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The corset/wall thing is all Pratchett, Vetinari's just having a good time


	5. The Woman Behind The Curtain

Ponder Stibbons finally managed to track down the office of the Pseudopolis Gazelle—they had evidently switched offices and changed to name of the newspaper several times in the course of the paper’s existence.

He was unsurprised to find Rincewind in the office, crouching slightly to keep his ‘Wizzard’ hat clear of the low-hanging lamps suspended from the ceiling.

As he entered, Rincewind was saying, “If the Duchess is so dedicated to opposing her own positions, do you think it might be possible to convince _her_ to hold an election? She thinks she’s popular, right?”

It was the kind of sideways but straightforward insight Ponder had come to expect from Rincewind but he felt the need to point out that they weren’t operating on a relative timeline and they wouldn’t have the chance to go back and fix anything that went wrong.

“So you’ve found us,” Odette said.

“You’d think Lady Meserole would at least tell me where you were.”

“You mean Bobbi?” Bill asked. “We wouldn’t think she would. She says there’s no point in playing a game that’s not complicated enough to be interesting.”

Rincewind sighed. “How can someone want things to be more complicated in a city this big.”

“If what I’ve heard is true,” Aspartamia began, looking at Ponder. “Your computer wizard goes a bit stir crazy when he doesn’t have enough to do.”

Ponder looked affronted and then a second later looked desolately lost.

Rincewind took a step closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

Ponder shook his head. “I feel like I’ve been cut off from part of myself. I just imagined HEX’s room with the doors locked, shut down. I didn’t realize until just now that I don’t feel whole when I’m away.”

“When we are finished here we will go home.”

Something about the way Rincewind said the word ‘home’ made Ponder’s heart catch. There was somewhere in the world where Rincewind felt safe, even if the Archchancellor* shot crossbow bolts down the hallway and tricked people for fun and thought everyone should enjoy sport.

-

Laurel Stibbons was throwing a pot, meditatively raising the clay into a perfect cylinder, turning the wheel with her foot.

Roberta watched her. Laurel was an expert, decades of practice evident in every movement. She worked a curved spiral pattern into the clay like a coiled snake and then smoothed it over so it was just an interesting ripple in the surface. “Do you think we should move things along out there?” Roberta asked.

“I’ve been working on a plan.”

“Does it involve Ponder, Mr Drumknott and that machine at the university?”

Laurel cut the vase she had made off the wheel. “It might. Would you like to compare notes?” 

“Do you know why I moved here, Laurel?”

“I thought it might be because this city is quieter than Ankh-Morpork but not as sedate as Quirm.”

“It is the second largest city on the plains. Traditional hierarchies are weaker here. It is fertile soil for a shift to representative government.”

“You spent most of your life in Genua while maintaining political involvement with other states.”

“The stories threatening Genua were not something I could resolve.”

“Were you made to play a role in a story?” Laurel asked.

“I was perhaps the cause of invocations to pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.” 

“How much do you think things could change here?”

“As much as they could change anywhere. As much as people are willing to work for. Although I question where the threshold of the extraordinary responsibilities of those with extraordinary abilities should fall. We are all bound by subjectivity.”

-

“The meetings doing what people with too much shelf space have to this weekend—“ 

Drumknott ran through an internal thesaurus of idioms, trying to parse Vetinari’s verbiage “Bookending?”

“The meetings bookending… That sounds horribly corporate. I’m not using that again.”

“Very well, sir.”

“The meetings proceeding and following the weekend of the wedding require my presence."

“Have you written to your aunt regarding the difficulty of making a twenty-five-hour journey in twenty-four hours?”

“What would that accomplish?”

“You last wrote to her weeks ago.”

“I do hope you two are not conspiring. I would not know where to put a mug with ‘Send A Clacks To Your Aunt’ written on it.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about.”

-

Adrian Turnipseed, the wizard formerly known as Big Mad Drongo, had received an inquiry regarding the possibility of the creation of a mechanical light-sensitive device, something that would be able to tell where ink was on a page. It didn’t seem especially useful at the degree of sensitivity proposed. It would not even be able to identify text. Why would anyone want something that could only tell you where large blobs of ink were?

He spared this question only a moment’s thought before beginning to come up with ways to create such a device.

This disregard for why he was asked to do things, a product of nearly two decades of capital-E Education, had been challenged by Professor Stibbons a couple of times, but Stibbons was just as liable to get caught up in the technical details of what he was doing and not ask why he was doing it.

Humming a song, he picked up some small glass tubes. They could be filled with hydrogen or noble gases or have all the air pumped out of them so stray electrons wouldn’t get in the way. Then caesium and antimony could generate a current—like what Stibbons had tried to do with all those cats—where there where was reflected light and photons colliding with electrons, allowing the detection of areas where light was not reflected. This would work, as long as no one wrote with blue ink.

-

Bill’s editorial in the newspaper was accompanied by a reprint of the photos from the protest. It made the argument that elected government was more answerable to demands and criticism because politicians could be removed from office.

It received a number of responses making the point that unelected politicians could also be removed from office, that this was called assassination and Ankh-Morpork had a Guild about it.

In Bill l’Appelle’s opinion, this failed to recognize the fact that amount of terrible decisions resulting in someone not being re-elected ought to be much lower than the amount of terrible decisions resulting in someone being killed. But maybe he had it wrong.

*The subject of Mustrum Ridcully got a lot of airtime in Rincewind’s therapy appointments


	6. Pseudopolis, we have a problem

Henry, archchancellor of Braseneck University, had managed to get the magic mirror working. This was accomplished primary by poking at it repeatedly. Henry had caused many things to happen in this way, such as the entirety of space and time.

On the other end of the mirror, instead of the wizards he had been expecting, was the night cook of Unseen University and the Patrician’s secretary.

“I don’t want to say it—“ Drumknott was saying.

“You should say it,” Glenda insisted.

Rufus sighed, looked directly into the mirror, and said “Pseudopolis, we have a problem.”

Henry squinted at the mirror. “What kind of a problem? Where’s Mustrum?”

“He’s doing target practice,” Glenda said, leaning further into the frame of the mirror-image. “Outdoors, thankfully.”

“There’s someone besides the Duchess invested in the possibility of there being an election.”

Henry tilted his head to one side. “I was under the impression that was a necessary component of electoral politics.”

“One word,” Glenda said, holding up a finger and looking impressed that the small image of herself in the corner of the mirror was also holding up her left hand. “Gilt.”

“There’s another one?” Henry asked.

“It’s a surname,” Drumknott said exhaustedly.

“Well, so is ‘Vetinari’ but there’s only one of those.”

“Avid Gilt is in the coal business. We finally managed to get Pessimal to come back and finish seeing what was— Well, I say we— Really I asked if he wanted to get coffee and then—“

“Did you ever find it suspicious that Unseen University burns more coal than it can account for?” Glenda interrupted helpfully.

Henry stroked his beard thoughtfully. “That would involve knowing how much we _could_ account for, wouldn’t it?”

“So what Pessimal figured out—“

“Once he looked through Ponder’s accounts—“ Glenda added, preventing a tangent about a morning in Hide Park.

“Was that Avid Gilt was the reason no one dared change the bucket-of-coal-per-position policy. Ponder was afraid of him and the bursar—“

“Dr Dinwiddie is a very non-confrontational person.”

“I have known the man for decades, Miss Sugarbean, do carry on to the point.”

“Pessimal wasn’t frightened of him. He isn’t frightened of—“

Glenda did not want to keep curtailing Rufus’s glowing praise of his former colleague but at this rate archchancellor Henry was likely to congratulate Rufus on something that had not happened and that would be _awkward_. “He discovered Gilt’s plans to run for office in Pseudopolis. He’s been carrying out similar schemes with the fuel and heating at other institutions and price-gouging and bullying his way across the plains.”

“It sounds like we may want to look over our accounts over here as well,” Henry said.

Glenda was impressed by the proactive nature of this suggestion. Perhaps poking things repeatedly was more effective than she had previously thought.

-

Adrian Turnipseed had received a second set of instructions to build a light sensitive device that could detect reflected light at the opposite end of the spectrum to the one he had previously built. This one would be able to detect blue ink but would not respond to red ink.

Not knowing who had sent either request, he brought both devices to the Duchess’s manor for demonstration.

“Your Grace,” Adrian said, bowing as he entered. Duchess Juliann took some getting used to compared to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork who Adrian had never met without being asked “What does this do?” and being certain that somehow Vetinari was collecting more information than he could fathom while any actual explanation went in one ear and out the other.

“Yes, what is it?” the Duchess asked warmly. It wasn’t a pleasant warmness. It was more like the warmness of a puddle you were really hoping would not be.

“I have heard that you are favorably disposed to the possibility of Pseudopolis’s head of state being elected democratically. To that end I have created ink mark recognizers for counting ballots. They are purely mechanical and not influenced by magic.”

There were pieces of tape stuck to the machines labeled ‘do not use red’ and ‘do not use blue.’

Adrian ran several sheets of paper with circles filled in with black ink through both machines, showing Juliann how it counted how many circles were filled in at each position.

Juliann ran a shiny fingernail under the ‘do not use blue’ label. “We could have someone sign off on each ballot in colored pen for multifactor verification.”

Adrian had the vague sensation that that something was afoot. “It’s because of the atomic structure of the photosensitive material that it responds to one end of the visual spectrum. An election should proceed with transparency and…” Here Adrian faltered. He could not implicate Juliann in the possibility of potential dishonesty and that meant it was already far too late. The scorekeeper was a contestant.

“ _Transparency_ ,” the Duchess pronounced. “We should have no problem with that. No problem with making clear exactly how involved Ankh-Morpork has been in this process.”

-

Beyond auditing a coal manufacturer, Ankh-Morpork was not involved in Pseudopolis’s upcoming election. Ankh-Morpork was rather triumphantly reviewing the blueprints for the next section of the Undertaking.

Caslong, one of the dwarfs from _The Times_ , was asking about the possibility of drastically varying the depth of the underground network across the city. “There’s a lot of architecture down there. I know it might make sense to cut-and-cover in places where that would be the easiest way to build, but that impacts the sub-surface and dwarfs have excavated much deeper. Is the entirety of the project going to take place below sewer level, for instance?”

“Generally speaking,” the Patrician said, carving a piece off the slice of apple cake in front of him and passing it to Mr Fusspot underneath the table, “A boring machine is any machine anyone happens to be trying to explain to me, but you raise a very good point. I am afraid we will not be able to get all of it below sewer level due to constraints of budget and time. There are trade-offs during the construction period, but I have no doubt that improved transportation and utility access, easing traffic congestion, and shelter from the elements will bring many benefits. As was observed earlier, we must respond to the reality of each piece of the whole. To understand interconnectedness, one must understand specificity.”

“We will have compensation for noise and road closures?” Rosemary Palm asked, just to confirm once again.

“You will.” Vetinari looked around at the other guild leaders. “Within reason.”

-

“We are founding a pressure group to ensure that whatever happens this time, there will be the possibility for things to move forward in the future.”

Roberta looked at Laurel with open adoration. That was what all of this was about. Not what happens right now but what could be allowed to happen. It was getting enough of the rust off the machinery of the city that it would be able to move and change.

“If there are threats of systematic, er…” Laurel cast around for a synonym trying to avoid using the word ‘threats’ twice.

“Threats to suffrage.”

“Yes. We will be able respond.”

“With insurrection?”

“If it comes down to it, and it may.”

Roberta nodded. You had to know where you were standing and where you were willing to fall. One didn’t pray to the Lady, but she had a say in whether change was bloodless.


	7. Cats and Dogs

The burrows of ants were visible through panes of glass in the inner workings of Braseneck’s machine, PEX. They were a predictable system of transferring information as it carried out its calculations. Pheromone and hormone signals tended to travel in one direction from ant to ant and then run out over time. It was a self-correcting system, pathways that worked were strengthened and those that did not were abandoned.

_It’s like a brain_ , Ponder thought glumly, _a neural network_. _But it’s so new that if I want to get anything done I have to do most of the work myself. I’m effectively getting an infant to run the census._

Turnipseed had returned from meeting with Juliann. He knocked on the chickenwire glass of the door before entering the room. “How am I supposed to tell her gracitude that the canal has failed?”

“You’ve got some good hardware here,” Ponder conceded, ignoring the question. He was really in a terrible mood and it was taking everything he had not to tear into the shortcomings of his friend’s thinking engine.

_This is one of the few people in the world who understands your work and, even if he wasn’t, you need to stop being scornful of everyone for not knowing as much as you do. It is not an acceptable way to treat people._ The part of Ponder that had been working for the past eighteen hours countered with: _It’s not because they don’t know, it’s because they don’t care. They’re uninterested and dismissive and having your work devalued continuously leads you to be defensive._

He ran a few more lines of code, came up with an error message, and failed to prevent himself from hitting his fist on the table next to the keyboard.

“Stibbons?” Adrian inquired.

“Yes, what is it?” he said in a harsh whisper, not taking his eyes off the readout from the machine. It just felt wrong. The terminal, the programming language, the room itself. Even the mesh fabric of the chair he was sitting in.

“When was the last time you ate?”

Back home, Ponder absentmindedly ate whatever students left in the room, but with the students who had come with him now spread out across the city, and Rincewind working with the newspaper, the culture of “leave Professor Stibbons with the leftover broccoli you were going to throw out” had collapsed.

“I think you should take a break.”

Ponder closed his eyes for a few seconds and realized how close he was to nodding off.

“You’re right.”

Outside of the lab building was a torrential downpour. Adrian and Ponder peered into the driving rain.

“Maybe we should order in?” Adrian suggested.

Ponder almost disagreed. Struggling through the rain and the rising water on the street could be the change of pace he needed to keep working. He looked down at his pointy boots with wooden soles. They would be waterlogged immediately. Why was he even considering that course of action? He must be more sleep deprived than he thought.

-

Mr Fusspot did not like the coach. He did not like being in a box moving faster than he could run. He did not like not being able to see what was happening outside.

But The Giver of Cake liked the coach even less. The coach hurt The Giver of Cake and was therefore Evil. Mr Fusspot was torn between barking at the coach for being Evil and giving The Giver of Cake lots of licks because he needed them. He could hardly do both at the same time. It was exhausting, this kind of decision-making. If he had known what it would entail he would have taken more time to think before accepting the position of bank chairman.

The Giver of Cake’s friend, whose robes reflected more light and who smelled something like lavender, was nicer to sleep on since he was warmer and less pointy, but he did not appreciate Mr Fusspot, and rather than have his heart broken, when he knew it was not personal, he had opted to focus on The Giver of Cake. The cold, pointy human, who spoke canine with an accent firmly rooted in the uncanny valley, deserved the honor of being slept upon for hours. The Wearer of Hats had made Mr Fusspot realize that eccentrically doting was not the default. The Wearer of Hats had ignored him for spans of time approaching a quarter of an hour. He feared that, if it was up to The Wearer of Hats, Mr Fusspot would not be responsible for most of a household’s food bill.

Rain began pelting the windows of the coach as it approached Sto Lat. Mr Fusspot had been to Sto Lat before with Mum. Mum would not have taken him outside in weather like this, but then she would not travel by anything as horrible as a coach either.

It was still raining after night had become morning and morning had become afternoon and afternoon had become evening and over in Octarine Grass Country the River Quire burst the banks of its canal and flowed back into its old riverbed, carrying on its rimward course toward the river delta in Quirm where it would join the ocean. Juliann might just believe that had not been the plan all along.

The sun had set by the time the black coach reached downtown Pseudopolis. Rain was still coming down in sheets.

Lord Vetinari handed the dog off to Drumknott, telling him to “Find out what’s going on in this city. I’m afraid my aunt’s cats would make mincemeat of him,” and then telling Mr Fusspot that he expected a full report and that there was wedding cake in an ice box somewhere that might have Mr Fusspot’s name on it if anyone was good at writing with piped icing.

When Vetinari stepped into the house at the end of Pseudopolis High Street, a road that started out as shops and restaurants and then turned into an expensive residential area, wool robes dripping on the carpet, he was greeted by a fluffy white cat wrapping its paws around his cane and trying to fit its jaw around it. Bracing his left hand against the wall, he lifted the cane so it slid out of the cat’s grip.

“I’m sorry, Havelock. He thinks he’s a kitten. This is Ms Stibbons cat,” his aunt said from the sitting room to the right of entrance. “Fleming! Apologize to Havelock!”

The cat looked up at Vetinari with round, orange eyes, and then rammed its head against his right leg. This was an apology, but not the one you want when nerve endings are still carrying on the leaden staccato scream of a stagecoach journey. 

Without saying anything, Vetinari dragged himself the few metres further to the couch.

The cat jumped up onto the couch and tried to bite the sliver of wrist beyond the end of his sleeve.

He stroked the cat absentmindedly, long fingers trailing through the long fur. “Please don’t do that, Mr Fleming. I still have scars from your brethren, although they typically use their claws. Do you have—“

Vetinari looked at the cat’s feet and pressed his fingers to his mouth in dismay. “They cut off his toes.”

“I’m afraid so. He was left in the street. We think it was because he started biting.”

Lord Vetinari lowered his eyelids and blinked slowly at Fleming, who returned the gesture. The cat would walk painfully for the rest of its life because someone had decided they wanted a pet they couldn’t handle.

With some effort Lady Meserole redirected her attention from the cat to her nephew. “Ti chiedo perdono. Please let me know if you need anything. I’m sorry about the timing. I know your schedule is relentless and this is not convenient, but you were consulted on the date—“

“On the date, yes, but not the season or location. Apology accepted, nonetheless.”

“Would you like supper?”

“What is it?”

“Stoccafisso.”

“Thank you.” The fermented codfish could be almost overwhelmingly nostalgic, touching deep sense-memory, but it was always comforting, knowing six months of preparation and thousands of miles of predictable transportation allowed it to be a staple food somewhere on nearly every continent. The world was interconnected with itself and had always been so.

The cat was now licking his hand, which was not much more comfortable than biting because the rough texture of its tongue was extremely sharp.

“I do know you quite well, you know,” his aunt said.

“Yes. And I am only here as your nephew. Do not expect me to step in.”

“Even if things get much worse?”

“This is not my city. It would not be my place.”

“One of the things I know about you is that you are incapable of standing by.”

“Maybe so. But in that case, you must allow me plausible deniability.” 

Laurel entered the room then and, looking at her and how much shorter she was than his aunt and the way her black curls tangled together, Havelock turned to Roberta and said “Madam, you have a type.”

She did not try to deny this.

“Is my cat torturing the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork?” Laurel asked.

“I am not an easy man to torture, Ms Stibbons.”

“I’m not certain my nephew would agree with that.” Laurel watched the cat rub its head against the politician’s hand. He was passively interacting with the animal; he’d clearly grown up around cats.

“I’m genuinely sorry he feels that way. I may have allowed my insecurities to get the better of me on some occasions.”

“Ponder does tend to needle at people.”

“It’s not something he does intentionally.”

There was a vase above the fireplace, unglazed and carved with a scene of two goddesses and a maker’s mark of a laurel leaf. It was jasperware. Vetinari had not seen this kind of pottery that intricate since the serpent dance* the night of the tenth anniversary of his ascension had destroyed Snapcase’s collection.

“The construction of this is incredible. Those are Anoia and Errata in the forest, yes?”

Laurel looked at the vase. Under the image was written κίνη χέραδας. “Yes. I’ve always translated the fragment on there as ‘look under stones.’”

Vetinari tilted his head to one side. “Did you used to live in Ankh-Morpork?”

*Specifically Downey gleefully kicking in the glass of the pottery cabinent  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original Sappho quote is Μὴ κίνη χέραδασ which has been translated as many things, but if χέραδασ does mean pebbles (or cairns) there's a connection to the fact that ψῆφος (pebble in Ancient Greek) is the word for a vote because votes were cast with pebbles (also why a ballot is called that and psephology is the study of elections) 
> 
> I messed with the don't move/move part for world-and-mirror-of-world reasons. I mean it's written on a vase depicting the goddesses of misunderstanding and typos and things getting stuck in drawers


	8. Here is Your Keysmash Please Use Responsibly

The wedding was going to be held outdoors, which explained the season and, if anyone was being honest about air quality, the choice of city.

The rain had left behind the smell researchers in Fourecks had named after words for stone and blood.

The election was underway, which was also a reason the wedding was not indoors as most large public buildings, religious and secular, were occupied.

After going through what Vetinari remembered of Lord Snapcase’s collection of Jasperware, it was determined that they had mostly been Laurel’s work.

She seemed uncomfortable with the notion that the Patrician had been relieved when they were destroyed.

“You did keep them around for a decade. You must have had some appreciation—"

“They were beautiful. But I kept them around as a reminder of whose shoes I was wearing.”

Laurel glanced under the table at Vetinari’s surprisingly workmanlike boots, well made enough to last for years. 

“He means as a kind of self-flagellation.”

Vetinari’s inward sigh of familiar vexation was reserved only for his aunt. He steepled his fingers. “Something that must be understood is that when you get the outcome you want in a situation like this, even if you are certain you are braced for impact, prepared for bleak disappointment, it can go worse. One must not forget how fast and how far one can fall.”

There was a look in Lady Meserole’s eyes that Laurel had not seen before. “I did not know you did business with Snapcase.”

“Bobbi. It was before he was in office.”

Roberta was hardly in a position to raise objection to that, since she _had_ made the decision that Lord Snapcase was to become Patrician.

“Are you alright? You seem… haunted.”

The sound Roberta made was nearly identical to Havelock’s sigh. “How could I not be haunted?”

The silence that followed was broken by the sound of the calico street cat, Widgery* scratching another tear into the arm of the sofa in the next room.

-

Kara Jordan, wizard of the second level, was checking in the electorate in the atrium of Pseudopolis’s Temple of Blind Io.

“Name?”

“Thursley, Eric, 13 Midden Lane—“

Kara took a sip of coffee. “Turnipseed says we’re not to use addresses because the ants got into the sugar cubes in the tea trolley and when he put them back they added extra letters to all the records. Midden Lane is listed as QWMiddSTYenLKLnJKZL.”

“Horrifying.” Eric said, picking up the ballot. “Do you know who that man with the reporters on Ginkgo Street is?”

“Is he bothering you?”

“Do you think it is appropriate to apologize to someone you technically rescued from the Dungeon Dimensions for making their life difficult for either a couple of days or the entire history of the universe?”

Kara stared into her coffee. “Look kid, I’m being paid as a clerk today, not an advice columnist.”

*Widgery was the name of landlady of the first wizards of Unseen University. The cat Malich in Genua had certainly seemed to have met Death and lived to see another day more than the requisite nine times, so Roberta had kept up the naming tradition.


	9. A Wedding? What's a Wedding?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this fic set in the spring? I guess it is now

Lady Roberta Meserole had been married once, to a man who had disappeared two months later. Havelock, who had been reeling—as much as someone could reel when one was four years old and planning to learn to read in Brindisian after he got through every book on Djelibeybi in Quirmian which he had accidentally figured out how to read first—from the notion that his father’s partner George was never coming back, remembered nothing of that wedding but pulling bits of raisins out of the cake and flicking them into the bushes.

Roberta clearly remembered that day vividly and was looking at the rows of chairs with something approaching horror, tapping it on the shoulder and asking it for directions.

Ponder, who had been awake for two days and then slept for six hours, was wandering around the park nursing a vacuum flask of drip coffee just strong enough not to taste bad. His aunt and her fiancée had offered him Klatchian coffee and espresso, but he was not sure he was up to being fully conscious. He’d tried on his formal robes again in the vain hope that they might be less stiff and uncomfortable and look less terrible with his battered old hat. They did not, of course, so he’d put on a wooly jumper and was hoping no one would ask him to change out of it. Laurel, out of consideration that today was possibly the only real day off her nephew might have for months had, for once, not instructed him to oversee anything. It had been a long time since he had felt like he was just drifting through the day.

He was aware of a fraction of the stereotypical wedding day tension in the immediate atmosphere which, mixed up with the general fraught anticipation in the air indicated that on a personal level something was reaching a breaking point. Ponder did not want to have to deal with that. He wished Rincewind would show up and be awed by the trivialities he could worry about or dismiss them as not involving mortal danger. He did not want to have to be the one making amends if this fell through.

What would Vetinari do? He was skilled at diplomacy, obviously, but how did that apply to the person who raised you? Ponder had enough extended family to feel like they were continually annoyed with him and in some ways his aunt was one of them. No, Ponder could not predict what Vetinari would do. Even if he had enough information to make such a prediction, Vetinari’s genius was in being unpredictable.

Roberta turned to look out into the street rather than across the park “I am having genuine doubts about going through with this.”

Lord Vetinari was pulling apart a clover flower. “I wouldn’t. I believe that if you have a deep enough understanding of performative speech acts, the act itself takes on not so much an obsolescence as a transient significance and significant transience.”

“I can’t tell if you’re saying you would not have genuine doubts or that you would not go through with a wedding.”

Havelock shrugged.

“The symbolism of exclusivity and binding does not gel as well as I would like with my politics," Roberta said, considering permanence in contrast with the notion of ritual as a moment in time.

Idly picturing a marriage license suspended in jelly, Havelock tied the clover stem into a knot. “It’s your ceremony, it can mean whatever you want it to mean.”

“I’m also not convinced it would be the right thing for me to do with the time I have left. I am not certain it would be the right outcome for either of us. I did not give this as comprehensive consideration as I ought to have since we have been so focused on the future of the city and—“ Roberta hesitated. “She seemed so upset if I ever implied that I was leaving. She would end up my widow.”

Something changed in her nephew’s expression, a slight tensing of the muscles under the eyes. It looked more like skepticism than sadness if you attributed anything to it at all.

“Mio nipote prediletto, fatevi coraggio.”

‘Prediletto’ was a bit of a joke, one that had never been funny to begin with—what does it mean to be ‘favorite’ when there’s only one?—and just made ‘nipote’ sound even more avuncular, but the realization that this was intentionally calculated to keep out cloying sentiment opened the door to let it back in and gum to the walls again.

Roberta sighed.

Havelock closed his eyes. He did not have the energy to form an opinion on how he was feeling or to react to the possibility that he may have travelled hundreds of miles for an event that was not going to happen. The fact that Pseudopolis’s foray into representative government had an uncertain outcome was a continual sparking background static.

At the other end of the park Rincewind greeted Ponder. They embraced. They were going home soon. 


	10. Pointless Albatross

Drumknott had not had a good night. Mr Fusspot could not make up his mind whether he wanted to be in the bed with him, so all night the dog had been jumping down to the floor, somehow jimmying the door open—Rufus didn’t know how Mr Fusspot had learned how to do that, the door of the room in the embassy opened in, not out—and leaving the room, so Drumknott had to get up, bring him back inside and close the door, at which point the dog would hop up onto the bed, burrow into the blankets and the whole charade would repeat.

It was obvious why it was happening and he could have locked the door but the sound of dull claws scraping the wood seemed more painful than getting up every ten minutes. 

Mr Fusspot was not an energetic dog, but he ran the whole length of the block after catching sight of Vetinari, ears flopping, tongue lolling. Drumknott thought he felt himself smile.

-

“Laurel,” Roberta was saying, “I know it’s too late, but I’m hoping eventually you will be able to forgive me if that will bring you peace. If not, I accept that—“

But Laurel was shaking her head and looking bemused and wistful. “Did you think I couldn’t see where this was headed?”

“I couldn’t see— I did not really even think— I am so sorry to have—“

“Are you really?”

Roberta felt at sea. A lifetime of negotiation, of avoiding or winning battles with words, of dancing on the gossamer threads of delicately balanced influences suspended over disaster had led to this? The expectation of breaking off an agreement? The perception that one’s word, a promise, was a tool?

And Laurel was smiling at her, inscrutable as a god, alluring as the mortals they idolize. A candle in an empty room appears to be a brighter flame than a fire that never goes out. But all fires do, eventually, whatever people try to accomplish with routine and symbolism. Even the universe might be the last, with nothing to rise from the ashes. Roberta considered that might be where meaning comes from, the sparkling cut glass awareness of non-being and nothing. How much more precious were ephemeral things?

All the stories said ending a romance like this wasn’t supposed to happen and that if it did it would be with conflict and heartbreak.

She wondered if Laurel was someone who, like her nephew, had pushed anger to the far side of thought. She had not seemed to be. 

Roberta looked over at Havelock who appeared to be thanking the gods. So much for nihilism and anti-teleology.

Ponder was digging unidentifiable crumbs out of a pocket and offering them to the smushed-looking dog.

He found a paper napkin and was about to fold it up and put it back, but Vetinari held out a long-fingered hand asking to read what was written on it.

Taking the napkin, Vetinari flipped it over and in a few strokes of a pen summoned the image of the Duchess’s manor and with a few more an edificeering route up the building, quite different from either the route he would have taken when he was young, or the one he would take employing a method of climbing relying nearly entirely on upper body and core strength that made his elbows unhappy but meant some rooftops were still within reach. Ponder looked at the drawing and shook his head.

Vetinari sketched another route and turned to Rincewind, who sighed.

“If one of us goes in there to make sure they’re doing it properly, wouldn’t that be interference?”

His Lordship’s eyebrow said ‘haven’t you been here for a month?’ but he touched his finger to his mouth and spoke no words.

Watching this play out, Roberta said nothing either. Interfering was what she had been doing all her life.

Standing up, Vetinari turned to his secretary. “It looks like we have a day. I have no interest in breaking the news to the wedding guests.”

Drumknott murmured something that sounded like “Pointless Albatross,” referring to the birds that would fly thousands of miles for practically no reason at all.

“Have you had breakfast yet, Mr Drumknott? I know somewhere we can get frumenty with almond milk.”

“Don’t misuse first person pronouns to hide an entire crisis about almond milk.”

“May contain nuts,” Rincewind said absently, trying to memorize both sides of the napkin.

-

That evening Juliann Fausseville was announced as being elected by Pseudopolis’s first election, which was considered a crisis averted, but in a house upholstered in lilac satin and cat fur there was a request for “less celebratory alcohol” and actual glasses from people watching champagne bubble in the nicest mugs in Pseudopolis.

“We’ve reached a starting line,” Laurel posited. “Or not lost sight of it. That’s something.”

Havelock, who was still four or five drinks from what most people thought of as knurd said, “It might be, eventually, if pressure is not let up. This city bleeds and this has not been a bandage, not even a blood clot. It is by no means time for resting on—“

His aunt who was leaning against her former bride-to-be, and two pairs of bright orange eyes were staring at him. 

“You know what I mean.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ponder has kind of forgotten that he and Vetinari would be at most 'cousins in law' which is not really a thing


End file.
